NEW YORK — The government's historic bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Sunday will be good news to homebuyers and some homeowners hoping to refinance if it leads to lower mortgage rates, as experts expect.
But for homeowners already behind on their mortgage payments, or who owe more than their homes are now worth, the plan unveiled Sunday by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson offers little in the way of extra relief.
"The bailout will give the mortgage industry a stability that we haven't had in a couple of years," said Rich Cosner, president of Prudential California Realty. "But frankly no, it won't help (struggling borrowers) to refinance."
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a critical and increasingly dominant role in the mortgage market. The companies buy mortgage loans from banks and package those loans into securities that they either hold or sell to U.S. and foreign investors. That allows traditional lenders like Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual to make more loans.
Together, Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about $5 trillion in home loans, about half of the nation's total. But an alarming number of those loans started going into default, draining the companies' financial reserves and sending a chill through credit markets worldwide. As investors grew more skittish, borrowing costs started rising.
By placing Fannie and Freddie into a conservatorship, the government is promising investors that the companies' debt is as safe as the Treasury Department's.
While not a cure-all, the bailout is still a step in the right direction, industry observers say. It will at least "keep the lanes in the mortgage freeway open," said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, possibly putting the market on the road to recovery.
If mortgage rates fall, that will attract more potential buyers into the market, which, in turn, will help to prop up home prices, he said.
He expects mortgage rates on a conventional, 30-year fixed-rate home loan to fall over the next few weeks as the dust settles on the bailout. Rates, which now average 6.35 percent, could fall as much as half a percentage point, he said. But continued investor wariness and a depreciating housing market will keep rates from dropping further.
Government officials declined to speculate on how much mortgage rates would be affected.
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